Contentions

While Hillary Clinton congratulates herself for the state of U.S.-Israeli relations, she is, for now, on the receiving end of what one might genuinely call an affront. It seems that Vladimir Putin read her the riot act — in front of the onlooking news corps. Oh, yes. ABC News reports:

When reporters traveling with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Moscow were informed that a last-minute meeting with Russia’s Prime Minister Valdimir Putin had been added to the schedule, they were told they would only get to see a few seconds of handshakes before being ushered out.

Instead, with cameras rolling, they watched Putin spend six minutes rattling off a number of complaints he has with the United States.

He barked about trade and scolded her about the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment. “Reporters were surprised at the length of Putin’s list of issues and the fact that he did it in front of the Russian and American press corps, a pool reporter noted.” In other words, Putin went out of the way to bully the U.S. Secretary of State in public. Just to show who is boss? And this follows the announcement that, instead of cooperating to isolate Iran, Russia will build a nuclear power plant for the mullahs — an announcement issued to “greet” Hillary.

In short, the Russians have now shown us what resetting the U.S.-Russian relationship means. Putin has figured out that there is no risk — so long as you aren’t a small democratic ally of the U.S. — of incurring the wrath of the Obami. No condemnations or even frowns will be forthcoming. This is, you see, what comes from throwing ourselves at our adversaries’ feet and scorning our allies. Adversaries learn to take advantage of us while friends learn not to trust us.

And where does that leave our Iran policy? No prospect of international sanctions. The U.S. sanctions bill is languishing in Congress. The mullahs feel neither isolated nor besieged. It is not they whom the Obami are pressuring this week. We eagerly await Hillary’s Monday speech to AIPAC when she can explain the wizardry at work here. We’ll be all ears.